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Grass Eaters | 37 | Our Fight
🕑 Added 2024-03-28 16:47:01 +0000 UTCMFS Pesmod
“Captain Pliont, are we going to be able to reach the system blink limit before they get in range to fire?” Grionc asked with some urgency.
“I’m not sure,” his eyes darted to the radar, then back to Grionc. “We’re a diplomatic ship, not a racer. And the range that they fired those missiles at our escorts earlier was much higher than I’ve ever seen in my time in service.”
Reminded of the loss of eight perfectly good Malgeir Navy ships and hundreds if not thousands of spacers for no strategically justifiable reason, Grionc felt a flash of pain, followed by a burst of anger. But she forced herself to shelve those emotions; staying alive was the priority now. “Are the Terrans still hiding? What are they planning next?”
Speinfoent chimed in worriedly. “Do you think Amelia will just abandon us in the middle of this mess?”
Grionc shook her ears. “No, even if she didn’t want a battle here, our dead escorts have seen their home system and the spacers who are now ejecting from them know too much. There’s no way they can afford allowing them to fall into Znosian hands.”
“Perhaps we should attempt to reach the disabled escorts again. There might still be someone aboard, still in a position to trigger their self-destruct sequences—”
Pliont shot up from his chair as the sensor screen flashed with new data. He declared descriptively, “Something is happening!”
---
ZNS Birtevrut
After switching places with the now dead Sruakrach, the Znosian ship Birtevrut was placed on the perimeter of the raiding force. When the Fluffle Commander Atluftrosh gave the order to chase down the final Malgeir ship, its bridge crew was elated: they would be the first in range of her and would likely get to fire the killing blow. With the two kills achieved earlier and another two kills in a previous raid, she was going to have the chance to make ace today.
That was… until a pre-programmed, drifting Kestrel anti-ship missile she was passing went live, activated its boosters, and slammed into her side, opening a chunk of her hull into vacuum.
A large, important chunk.
---
ZNS Zvontru
The bridge tensed as Atluftrosh stabbed a button on his console to silence the alarm.
“Eight Whiskers! Captain Ktotssu of the Birtevrut is reporting that her ship has been disabled. The reactor had to be emergency rejected. The bridge has lost all primary power. Every critical compartment has been breached, and they can’t seal. Propulsion and life support are disabled and irreparable. They are combat ineffective and there have been significant casualties. Dozens of her spacers are injured with an unknown number killed. The remaining are abandoning ship.”
“What?! Was this predator sabotage too?”
“No, Eight Whiskers. Ktotssu said their sensors picked up an incoming missile just milliseconds before it smashed into them. No time to defend against it.”
“A missile?” Atluftrosh echoed. “Was it a trick from one of the Malgeir ships we killed?”
“Combat computer is uncertain but sees no other possibilities. It recommends we be on the lookout for more nasty surprises from the predators.”
“Do as it says, Sensor Officer. Maximum sensors focused on our frontal arc. Let’s not unnecessarily lose any more ships today.”
Inside, Atluftrosh couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret. This otherwise successful raid will likely be seen as only a partial success by command. Losing two ships for eight enemies was not the worst trade-off, but the raiding fluffle was not even supposed to take any at all this early in their mission especially—
Just then, alarms wailed across the bridge like an angry predator in the night. Atluftrosh’s eyes snapped to the sensor board on his console.
“Eight Whiskers, we’ve got incoming!” the sensor officer shouted. “Missiles spotted, two of them just lit up behind us! They’re directly on an intercept course with the Stvilp!”
As the deck rumbled with the sound of outgoing missiles, the weapons officer announced, “Our ships are engaging countermeasures. Eight counter-missiles out against two; high probability of intercept given the vectors. We should be able to—”
Before he could finish, the sensor board exploded with a cloud of hundreds of new signals and targets in the vicinity of the incoming enemy missiles.
“What the hell did they do?! Sensors, can we find the missiles again?” Atluftrosh asked, his unease spiking.
“By the Prophecy, there’s too many of them!” the officer cursed, her paws tapping away at her console, trying to find the right combination of tweaks and filters, hoping she would eliminate the false targets before the counter-missiles overshot their target…
A few minutes later, as abruptly as they’d appeared, the swarm of enemy markers vanished from the screen.
As did one of their own.
“In the name of the Prophecy, what happened?” Atluftrosh demanded. His whiskers twitched with agitation.
“We have failed, Eight Whiskers,” she replied hoarsely. “The Stvilp is no longer with us. It appears one of the missiles was a reactor hit. I take full responsibility for this error—”
“Never mind that, Five Whiskers,” Atluftrosh practically roared at her. “Where did those missiles come from?”
She recalibrated the radar sensors, pointing them at the first known origin of the enemy missile. She muttered a short prayer to the Prophecy. As if in answer to her devotions, a blip appeared on the ship’s main screen… “We’re getting a faint return, Eight Whiskers, but there appears to be something there!”
“Transmit the location to the fluffle and engage it!” he ordered.
With Znosian discipline and precision, twelve anti-ship missiles raced out from the raiding force’s remaining three ships. They reached the designated target area. Each of them independently identified a match to the radar signature transmitted to them by the Zvontru. Like a flock of avenging beasts, they pounced on the target before detonating, peppering the target with shrapnel and high explosives.
“Did we get them?” Atluftrosh anxiously surveyed the silent bridge.
The sensor officer hesitated, scanning the new data. “I don’t think so… there is additional debris in the area, but… it looks too sparse to be a real ship. And it didn’t move enough from its original position…”
“What does the combat computer say?” Atluftrosh queried, knowing the answer in his heart already.
“The Digital Guide evaluates it most likely to be a new, unknown decoy type, Eight Whiskers.”
“Break off the chase of the unarmed Malgeir ship. We’re aborting. Make our way back to the system limit. There’s something else out here,” Atluftrosh said, the unfamiliar sensation of fear fully washing over him. “And keep sensors on maximum. Maybe we’ll see them if we look hard enough.”
---
An hour later, the shrill wail of the alarm pierced through the tension-filled atmosphere on the bridge again.
“Missile incoming! Just one, it looks like Vzdosl is the target! Preparing to resolve decoys.”
“Transfer control of sensor resolution to the combat computer,” Atluftrosh ordered, gripping the arms of his chair as he mustered every ounce of calm. “Coordinate with the computers on the Vzdosl and Stonrakst.”
As expected, the single missile blossomed into dozens, then over a hundred false signals. Atluftrosh could see on the sensor board that even with the combined computing power of all three ships working in tandem and eliminating the false targets, it would probably not be enough. Too few dots were disappearing, and too many remained.
Suddenly, an additional notification appeared on his console. Connection to Vzdosl and Stonrakst lost… Attempting to re-establish…
“What’s going on communications officer?” he asked urgently.
“I am… not sure, Eight Whiskers… we’ve lost even our backup radio communications with the other ships! I have nothing but noise on every frequency!”
“Can we re-establish communications with the fluffle?” Atluftrosh asked urgently.
The communication officer recalled her training, “It is procedure to use light signals between ships when all other communication systems have failed, but that will only give us enough bandwidth for communication and command, not enough for target resolution. Adapting communications now—”
As abruptly as it had started, the alarms on the bridge cut off. A haunting moment of silence blanketed the room.
“Eight Whiskers,” the sensor officer squeaked, her voice tinged with sudden exhaustion and disbelief. “The Vzdosl has been destroyed. Reactor hit. No lifepods. I take full responsibility—”
The computer officer interrupted the report with an urgent update. “The Digital Guide has a new highest priority directive for us, Eight Whiskers.”
Atluftrosh wordlessly pulled up the combat computer’s output on his console:
The Great Predators are here. Flee.
---
MFS Pesmod
The image of Amelia’s face transmitted over the FTL radio appeared on Grionc’s console. It was encased in a helmet, and Grionc could swear she saw water between the admiral’s brows.
“What’s going on?” Grionc asked anxiously. “Why are you in EVA suits? Was there a hull breach on your ship?”
Amelia projected calm. “We’ve preemptively pumped the oxygen out and flooded the interiors with a flame-retardant atmospheric mix in case we do get hit. We’re coming up on the enemy now. At least they’ve stopped chasing you so you can get away even if we fail in our objective here.”
“There’s just two of them left,” Grionc observed. “That decoy trick was neat. I’m going to have to remember that one.”
“Heh. That wasn’t my idea. Captain Harris is in control. I’m just a passenger in the backseat now.”
Grionc frowned at her sensors. “It looks like the Grass— Znosians are going to attempt to run away now.”
“They’ve probably figured out what we are. Unfortunately, we are a recon ship, not a full combat ship, and we’ve just used up our last anti-ship missiles. And McMurdo is too far away for a rearm.”
Recon? I don’t think they use that word the same way we do.
“So what’s the plan?” Grionc asked.
“We are trying to get close enough to hit them with our kinetics. But that’s not a problem. As you’ve noticed, there’s only two of them left.”
Get close enough to hit them with kinetics?
Grionc took one look at the primal expression on the admiral’s face and shivered. That raw look of hunger was alien, but not that alien. If she had any lingering doubts as to what role the Terrans’ ancestors had played in their home world’s food chain before their discovery of fire and tools, it was wiped away in that instant.
---
TRNS Mississippi
Insulated from the non-oxygenated atmosphere outside, Chuck’s mind focused on the vibrations of the ship’s engines and machinery and the own controlled breathing in his combat helmet. On his console screen, he saw the Mississippi utilizing its experimental thrusters to try to align itself with the remaining two bandits who were sticking close together clearly in hopes that their overlapping point defense coverage will improve their survivability. “How are we on the firing solution, XO?”
Commander Samantha Lee replied through the internal helmet radio, “CIC is trying to get a good alignment on the two ships so we can take them both out in one volley.”
“That sounds… ambitious. Should we get closer?”
“Negative, Captain, we’re already risking being detected by their close-range infrared and visual sensors at this distance. If they rigged up some starlight occlusion program—”
“Understood, XO. Engage if you think we’ve got a good shot. If we can take both out at once, do it. If not, I’d put the money on us in a head-on knife fight with just one of them too, even if they still have their missiles.”
“Roger,” she replied, then added after a moment, “And, Captain, that’s a bad bet. I wouldn’t be able to collect if you’re wrong.”
Chuck swallowed a smug reply. There would be more time for that later.
He did not have to wait long.
The targeting panel turned green, indicating the computer had calculated a good enough solution. It was now or never—
“Firing solution acquired.” His XO’s voice came back on the radio as the increased vibrations of the inertial compensators could be felt through the decks of the ship. “Thrusters to full combat burn to get us into position, and targeting to engage when the CIC computers—”
The deck thundered as the ship’s internal gun bays snapped opened and unleashed a hail of kinetic death at the now lined up enemy ships. Even the lights on the bridge dimmed momentarily; the reactor struggled at the monumental power draw requirements as its capacitors discharged instantly. In a half-second, thousands of orange-sized depleted uranium projectiles were propelled by the ships’ magnetic rails towards the last two ships of Bandit Alpha.
The first target instantly detonated under the onslaught without a chance to react, spewing its guts in all directions.
Several hundred remaining projectiles passed through the empty space where she was and hit the second, staggering the final and largest ship of the formation. The Zvontru lost primary power; debris and atmosphere streamed from the dozens of new fruit-sized holes in her hull.
Samantha reported triumphantly to the crew quietly cheering in their own helmets, “One down and the last one’s dead in the water. Reloading the spinal magazine for another volley…”
---
ZNS Zvontru
“Primary power systems disabled. Secondary power systems disabled. Emergency generators failing. Life support disabled. Propulsion disabled. Blink drive—”
The bridge announcer and klaxon systems ceased their warnings as they, too, finally succumbed to the power loss.
Atluftrosh tasted blood and metal on his tongue as he struggled to his walking paws, feeling a stab of pain in his head with every effort. Smoke filled the air on the bridge as automatic fire extinguishers attempted to stop the spread of several flames. A single glance told him it was going to be a hopeless battle. The inferno had already consumed the navigation station, its duty officer slumped unconsciously over the station.
A crew member he did not recognize in his concussed state ran towards him, putting her arms and paws around his waist in support. “Eight Whiskers, we have to get you to a lifepod!”
Atluftrosh shook his head and shoved her to the floor, then half limped towards his command chair. Miraculously, his console was still lit up with the last few ounces of juice in its emergency battery reserves. He engaged the exterior cameras, which had automatically directed their attentions to their assailant: an unnaturally dark ship hanging in space just thousands of kilometers away. The cameras visibly struggled to keep it in their views as the enemy preemptively launched decoys and countermeasures to confuse its dying prey’s targeting and automatic defense systems.
With his vision blurring, he labored to operate the controls for the Zvontru on his console, powering through the intensifying agony in his head with sheer determination and well-trained, well-bred instincts. Surely, there was still a battery or missile launcher somewhere near the aft that was still operational that he could operate remotely from the bridge—
On the optic, a bright flash emanated from the belly of the enemy beast, washing out the entire image to white. As the infrared cameras quickly adjusted to the sudden thermal bloom, he saw that the glowing barrel of his executioners’ railguns had just discharged another massive stream of explosive slugs towards his crippled ship.
Eight Whiskers Atluftrosh had just enough time to close his eyes to begin coughing out the Prayer of Death. “My eternal gratitude to the Prophecy for this insignificant life of service. May It prevail through the will of others—”
---
TRNS Mississippi
The last enemy ship on the screen detonated, its white-hot infrared signature washing out their camera’s vision.
“Admiral, all bandits out of commission,” Chuck reported as the ship’s sensors reverted to non-visual sensors to confirm the final kill.
Amelia’s pleased voice came back in his headset. “Excellent work, Captain. You just made ace-in-a-day, first in… decades, I think. You can lift EMCOM now and restore the ship’s atmosphere. Contact McMurdo to commence search and rescue. And let the Puppers know we’ll meet them on McMurdo.”
“Understood. Are we… taking Znosian prisoners?”
“Yes, after we tend to the Malgeir spacers. We’ll have a few weeks before the Bunnies come looking. Once our quick response force gets here from Sol, we’ll need them to tow the enemy hulls and as much debris as possible into the McMurdo-6 gravity well, so let’s try not to create too much more of that…” Amelia let her voice trail off.
“What about the disabled Malgeir ships?” Chuck asked.
“Those… will need to go too. We can’t leave them lying around. If they can’t fly out of here by the end of the week, they get disposed of… I’ll let their Fleet Commander know myself,” she replied.
“She won’t be happy,” he observed.
“Neither am I, but at least we got the damn Buns. And if we’re lucky, we’ll give them quite a mystery when they come back to investigate. Oh, and Chuck, get our computers to send a sanitized copy of the sensor and communication recordings to the Pesmod. To make sure the Pup big wigs don’t try to pin the blame for this disaster on the one person over there who isn’t responsible for this disaster…”
